Natalya #2
I take a deep breath and drag my hands over my face savagely.
Here we go.
“Okay, one last thing. We might have one last—tiny—argument.” I say and grab her hand, leading her back into the center of the hotel suite, because I’m definitely not doing this alone.
“Alright,” I shout around the suite, so Kas and Kiara can hear me since they’re on the balcony now. “Scooby-Doo gang emergency meeting. Everyone assemble.”
They both wander back inside and collapse onto the couch. Natalya and I take the other one, while she’s watching me with a deeply judgmental look.
I spread my legs and they instantly start nervously bouncing on the floor.
“Truth,” I start solemnly, as if leading a press conference. “Is one of the main pillars of a healthy relationship.”
“Wow,” Natalya says dryly. “Did you come up with that just now?”
“Read it somewhere…” I mutter, then gulp a whole glass of prosecco for courage.
Kasien snorts. “Where are you getting with this speech?”
“You’ll see,” I mumble. “Since we’re basically one big family now,” I start again and Kiara starts laughing while stuffing her mouth with five grapes at a time. “There’s a small detail that needs to be shared.”
What the hell am I even saying?
Let’s just get this over with.
I clear my throat, then Kiara stops laughing when it hits her.
“Oh God, let me rather—” she rushes out.
“Shush.” I lift my hand in a gesture to silence her. “I got this.”
“Jesus, spill it!” Natalya shouts, watching me like she’s waiting for the biggest piece of gossip.
“So,” I start once more, putting my hand on Nat’s thigh to prevent her from running away. “While my soul was tearing itself apart from your absence—”
“Oh wow,” she says, tilting her head. “This will be good.”
I continue. “The smallest intimate moment occurred between the rest of us.”
Her smile turns into something between shock and confusion, while Kas covers his face, apparently not wanting to be part of this meeting.
“In my defense,” I blurt out. “I was absolutely hungover, we didn’t kiss or fuck or anything. Well. Not me, at least.”
“Jesus Christ,” Kasien mutters under his breath.
“Actually, I was barely there,” I lift my hands in defense. “I was just moral support. Okay, maybe a tiny bit of physical support too. That’s all.”
The room falls silent for the longest second of my life. So I continue.
“They were still stuck on the lie that they hate each other and I had to prove them wrong,” I add pathetically, gesturing to the two lovebirds sitting in front of us.
“Oh,” Natalya says at last. “So you heroically took matters into your own hands?”
“Yes. Exactly,” I nod humbly.
Natalya’s eyes jump from me, to Kiara, to her brother, then back to me, with the most confusing death stare.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I tell her, my grip on her thigh tightening. “And no, baby, I can assure you—she has not seen my masterpiece of a dick that belongs solely to you and you only.”
At some point in my life I realized that whenever I get nervous, I unlock a whole new level of idiocy. Mostly in the form of wildly inappropriate and painfully unfunny jokes.
Natalya just stares at me, already well accustomed to this particular brand of my stupidity.
“Huh,” she hums and nods once.
Then she stands and makes another round with her death stare. That’s when I see Kiara nervously biting her nails and Kasien holding a laugh.
Then the biggest slap flies across my face, stinging enough to be more humbling than my latest prison experience.
Okay, that’s good.
That basically means we’re good.
Kas snorts, breaking the dreadful silence. And just when I look at him to flip him off, another slap, yet unfairly smaller, lands across his face too.
He stops laughing.
Then Natalya takes a step toward Kiara, whose face is now somewhere between relieved and terrified.
“Please don’t hate me,” Kiara blurts out. “I had Stockholm syndrome.”
“Of course you had,” Natalya breathes out, then tenderly grabs Kiara’s jaw. “But we’re gonna make this fair now.”
My gaze clashes with Kasien’s, our telepathic conversation standing for what the fuck is happening?
“It’s not like we weren’t halfway there already,” Natalya says, taking Kiara’s hand in hers and making her stand up, while Kiara rises eagerly, her cheeks flushed.
My jaw is on the floor, Kasien’s too.
“Where are you taking my girlfriend?” Kas shouts after his sister, who’s now leading her away into another room.
Natalya whirls around. “She was my friend first!”
Then she manages to flip me off with both hands together with a shameless wink before she shuts the door.
Silence swallows the living room of the suite.
Kas and I are left alone with a table full of food, enough alcohol to kill a horse, and absolutely zero girlfriends.
“Well,” I break the silence. “I feel like that somehow backfired.”
“Mhm,” Kas hums, already pouring himself a glass of whiskey, looking completely unbothered by the situation.
“So,” I begin slowly, a smug smile creeping onto my face. “I think—”
“No,” he cuts me off.
“I think we should—”
“Don’t say it, Adrien.”
My smile can’t get any bigger at this point. Teasing this motherfucker is one of my favorite things in the world.
“We should make love too.”
“Fuck off!”
I push myself off the couch.
“C’mon,” I say, stepping toward him to provoke. “Let’s test the waters.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” he snaps, jumping up from the couch.
“I’ll be gentle,” I reach my hands to him in an attempt to pull that fucker in and smack him one but instead he smacks my hands off.
“I won’t be when I kill you.”
“Just one kiss,” I try one last time but I can’t stop laughing at this point.
He smacks my hands off again and a second later we’re wrestling instead. He shoves me away, but I grab his shirt and drag him down with me onto the couch, then the whole thing tips sideways and we crash into the low table, glasses clinking violently.
“Get off me, you lunatic,” he grumbles, trying to elbow me in the ribs.
“Just one kiss!” I laugh, dodging the hit and shoving his shoulder.
He swings at my head so I duck and tackle him around the waist. We stumble two steps before both of us slam straight into the wall. Something crashes beside us—a lamp.
Before I can recover, Kasien twists, grabs my collar, and slams me down onto the floor. The air leaves my lungs in a sharp grunt.
A second later he’s on top of me, knees planted on either side of my hips, pinning me to the carpet. He stares down at me, hair messy from the fight, victorious grin on his face.
Even though I’m not a bit serious, I can’t stop fucking with him.
“This counts as foreplay,” I wheeze, because I can’t breathe much under his weight.
“Seriously, shut the fuck up already.” He laughs, then smacks my cheek lightly before pushing himself to his feet.
I stay on the floor a few seconds longer, propped up on my elbows, watching him flip the sofa back upright.
Watching the way he’s come back to life since we got Kiara back. And only now do I realize he’s laughed more in the last few weeks than in the six years before that.
So this is what peace looks like for people like us.